To the Lizard!

Got up this morning and hopped on my bike to go have my morning coffee at the Green Lizard Cycling and Coffee shop in Herndon. Actually, before I left I had my pre-coffee coffee and stretched. I knew the round trip was 30+ miles, which is a long ride for me, and so I wanted to be stretched and warmed up to ward off any knee problems.

The good news is that it all went without a hitch. I made it to the Green Lizard (coffee! bikes! lizards!) pretty easily. Sat and had coffee and a muffin while I read the paper, then headed home Total distance was 31.6 miles. I had no IT band (knee) issues at all. I was a little wobbly after the ride - I went to the Westover Farmers Market and was staggering around like I was drunk - but no pain.

I saw deer alongside the trail at Vienna, and of course the usual collection of bad behavior, mishaps, and odd things:

- Almost got hit by a car where the trail crosses Great Falls Street. Event though the streets technically have the right of way over the trail at intersectinos (the trail has stop signs), drivers crossing the trail often yield to trail users. I saw a car approaching the trail very slowly and I assumed the driver was stopping. It turns out the driver was just distracted and he kept going as I crossed the intersection. I ducked out of the way off the trail just in time - a near miss.

- Lots of Lycranauts passing where they shouldn't (e.g., on narrow bridges).

- I had to ride off the trail onto the grass to avoid a swarm of kids taking up the whole width of the trail.

- And there were the usual interesting folks - a guy walking backwards, a unicyclist out riding with his family, a guy with long dreadlocks riding along waving his arms in big circles as he rode, almost like he was doing the butterfly stroke, a guy carrying a bicycle on his bike, a guy riding a tiny little bicycle car looking thing (not an ELF, though), and so on.

When I got home I used the Strava FlyBy feature and discovered that I had intersected with a few friends, none of whom I had noticed (all cyclists look alike to me on the trail). One guy from my Freezing Saddles team and I rode so close together for a couple of miles it looks on the FlyBy playback like we're riding together - but in fact neither of us knew the other was there.

I'm proud of myself for knocking off a 30+ mile ride without incident. Next, on to the half century!

I Can't Take Your Call Right Now ...

Mason Neck is one of my perennial favorites for kayaking. It's a low stress launch - easy carry, plenty of parking, real bathrooms. The scenery is beautiful and varied, and there's always wildlife - eagles in particular. I launched there Saturday with the intention of doing a ten mile paddle out into the river.

There was no disappointment when it came to bird life - ospreys, herons, and probably half a dozen eagles. I got to watch a pair of eagles arguing with an osprey. Good stuff overall.

After a bit of paddling I decided to take a break. I paddled up to the beach and pulled out my phone to see how far I had gone (I was running Strava). Well, at 4.1 miles I was short of my five mile target. I noticed that I had a new voice mail from an area code I didn't recognize - ahh, it was a call back from a kayaking outfitter in Maine I had called about renting during my upcoming trip.

"Hey, this is Dan at Duck Trap Kayak ... let me know how many days you need and do you need a real sea kayak, y'know, a longer boat where you sit in it and don't see your legs, or do you need a recreational kayak, the shorter, wider boats with the bigger opening where when you're sitting in it you can see your legs?" It makes sense for the guy to assume that the random customer doesn't know the difference between a sea kayak and a rec boat, but it was funny hearing this message as I was sitting in my kayak in the middle of a paddle.

Taking a Break

Anyway, not much else to report. I decided to turn back since it was getting quite hot. I swung a little wider out into the river on the way back and stopped to practice a few rolls near some anchored power boaters - two rolls successful, then I blew the third one! - and so my total was about 8.7 miles. Not bad for a hot summer day.

Gotta Catch 'Em All!

OK, the title of this entry is a Pokemon reference and the entry is about the Pocomoke, not Pokemon, and so maybe the title isn't 100% appropriate, but the area of the Eastern Shore around Snow Hill does offer a wide collection of outings to "catch".

Patriotic Paddling

The CPA July 4th weekend camping trip to Pocomoke State Park is a long-established annual event, but I've never gone because I've always preferred to spend the holiday with family. With time, though, things change, and this year the family was scattered far and wide - Valerie to NY to visit her mom, David to Pittsburgh, Teddy to Scout Camp with his old troop. Orphaned for the weekend, I joined the CPA trip.

The trip down Friday afternoon was pleasant: not much traffic, a stop for a pretzel at WaWa, good weather. Well, good weather until around the time I got to Snow Hill. It started to thunder and spatter rain about the time I arrived. I got my tent up and we got a pop-up shelter up as well before the heavens really opened up. Suzanne pulled in shortly thereafter and we pitched in to help her get set up quickly. Then it rained and rained. And thundered and thundered. No paddling was going to happen, that's for sure! Since people weren't jazzed about cooking in the rain, some of us headed into the town of Snow Hill for dinner. Needless to say, it stopped raining just about the time we got into town. Plus, the town's two restaurants were packed. So, some folks ordered takeout and we headed back to camp to eat. I skipped the takeout and ate the turkey sandwich I had brought from home.

Setting Out on Saturday

Snow Hill was having it's "First Friday" celebration, which as you might expect in a town with two restaurants and a handful of stores, was pretty small. But we did go and browse in an art gallery (and sampled their wines!) and got a chance to chat with one of the guys from the local kayak/canoe outfitter.

Up the Nassawango River

 Saturday brought better weather. The overall group was large enough (14 people, I think) that we split into different sub-groups for paddling. The trip I went on launched from the campground (that's pretty nice, being able to launch without having to drive anywhere), headed up the Pocomoke, then up the Nassawango River as far as it's navigable. The trip was about 15 miles round trip. Paddling the Nassawango can be a little challenging - it's a narrow, twisty river with some strong currents at the top. Tom B. had brought along his 15 year old grandson, and we were a little concerned about whether he could handle the length and difficulty of the trip - but he did fine!

Saturday afternoon's event was a group effort to install a Hullavator on Suzanne's brand-spanking-new Toyota RAV 4. This turned out to be a comedy of errors, but we were ultimately successful. First we had to hit the brand new car with a mallet - well, really we were baning on the  cross-bars to slide them to the right. Then Suzanne slide her finger while using a knife to open a bag of screws. Fortunately, our crack medical team (Leigh is an EMT and Tom R. is a dentist) jumped in and got her fixed up. I took the role of engineering management and directed the folks doing the install since (a) I can actually read and understand installation directions, and (b) I've done a Hullavator install before.

The Hullavator Installation Team

And it Works!

Saturday night we went back into Snow Hill for dinner - this was a pre-planned event - and then went to the town's fireworks display. While you would expect fireworks to be on the 4th, not the 2nd, a number of the Eastern Shore towns have fireworks and they seem to coordinate so they're spread out over the weekend.

Snow Hill Dinner: Mike & Linda, Mike and Debi, Rich & Sue. Tom R., Sophie and Bela in the background.

Snow Hill Dinner: Leigh & Bela, Jesse, Suzanne 

Sunday morning - guess what - more rain. Gina, who had been camping at Assateague, stopped by. Apparently Suzanne and Gina had talked about scouting some launches over on the Chesapeake Bay - only about 20 minutes away. Since it was kind of yucky weather for paddling, the three of us wound up going out and scouting three launches. First, through the nearly derelict town of Stockton, we checkout out George's Island Landing (which is not on an island, in case you were wondering). Nice facility - plenty of parking, ramp and beach, Porta-Potty, even signs with suggestions for trips. We had thought that if we found a good put-in we might launch and paddle a bit but the weather on the Bay side was terrible - windy, cold, rainy. We were all wishing we had warmer clothes. Instead of launching we continued on to another similar launch just a bit north. Along the way we tried to explore the E. A. Vaughn wilderness area, which on the map listed camping, but were unsuccessful at finding a decent road in and certainly didn't see any camping - in fact, the place was marked with "no camping" signs.

Seen While Exploring

The third landing we explored was pretty dicey. Down a long, muddy dirt road - we got Suzanne's new car splattered with mud in a big way. The side of the road plastered with "No Trespassing for ANY REASON" signs. Finally the road ended right at the water - no developed facility at all, just a road to the water. And more No Trespassing signs. We turned around and left.

Suzanne, Gina and I drove back to Snow Hill looking for lunch, but both restaurants were closed (Sunday of July 4th weekend!). Outside of town the pizza place, Chinese restaurant and McDonald's were open, but the first two of these looked pretty dicey (Rich S. later reported the the Chinese restaurant is, in fact, good) and the third was unappealing. By this time the weather was clearing so we drove to Byrd Park, ate the food we had brought with us then launched our kayaks for a short paddle around the the local part of the Pocomoke River, including going past "Goat Island" which does indeed have goats, though they're not feral.

The Pocomoke River near Snow Hill

Goat Island Resident

Sunday evening was a group potluck. By that point the group had evolved somewhat: Mike and Debi had gone home to New Jersey, and Mike and Linda had left as well, Gina had gone home and Linda (a different Linda) had arrived. I wasn't completely happy with how my dish came out, but all told it was a good and festive meal!

Monday's weather was good and so Suzanne, Tom R., Sophie and I returned to George's Island. We didn't want too long a trip since we all had lots of driving ahead of us, and so we chose to do about a 6 mile circumnavigation of an island. This turned out to be a highlight of the weekend - fun, bouncy water on the exposed side of the island, and flat, calm water on the inside. Pretty scenery. Lots of wildlife, including pelicans, cormorants, horseshoe crabs and dolphins. Dolphins!

Getting Ready to Launch

Salt Marsh

The trip was over just at the right time, which seemed far too soon. We all packed up and headed home. I made a bee-line for the Bay Bridge, wanting to get across before traffic got to bad. Instead of stopping for lunch I just scrounged leftover food out of my groceries and cooler as I drove. As it turns out, I think the rain had driven people home early, since there was little traffic getting over the Bay Bridge.

Well, I didn't "catch 'em all", but I did get to do a selection of old favorites and one new trip. And that's good enough!

Not Really About Me

Dead and Company

Let me start by saying that when I bike ride I am never a MAML. This acronym (pronounced "mammal") stands for "Middle Aged Men in Lycra" and refers to guys who squeeze their paunchy mid-life selves into too-tight bike clothes, with a net visual effect that's both comedic and horrible.

So, I'll also add that I'm not a MAMT. I just made up this acronym and don't have a good pronunciation for it, but it stands for "Middle Aged Men in Tie-dye". Heck, even when I was younger I didn't wear much tie-dye. I always felt inauthentic, like I was impersonating a hippie. The folks who followed the Dead, the white guys in dreadlocks and their barefoot women, the 60's holdover stoners ... they were entitled to wear tie-dye. I did not wish to be an impersonator of a particular lifestyle.

Let me say that last night at Jiffy Lube Live (capacity 25,000) there were roughly 24,999 people who disagreed with me. The place was littered with DC MAMLs, bearded guys who probably live very non-hippie lifestyles. Perhaps they are deep in the bureaucracy by day, working for the Department of the Exterior Interior Fish, Wildlife and Internal Revenue before returning to their McMansions at night. But once in a while they put on their tie-dye shirts and, lo and behold, they're hippies! Except they keep checking their work email.

Anyway, because of mix-ups, last minute illnesses, and the like, I wound up at the Dead and Company show by myself. I almost didn't even go, but I figured the band is fading away (it's down to 50% realy Grateful Dead members) and so I should see it while I can. Plus I had a great ticket for the General Admission pit area right up front. Plus I decided not to get depressed over something which was supposed to be a good time.

Upon getting into the arena in true Deadhead fashion I downed some mushrooms and coke - and by that I mean a surprisingly good portabello burger and a Diet Coke. Properly fed, I wandered into the pit and got way up front. This was pretty cool. It was too tight up there to dance, but not uncomfortably packed. There was a lot of weed being smoked (don't these MAMT bureaucrats care about their clearances???). Most of the crowd around me was MAMTs and their female equivalents. A few Deadhead freaks, including a couple dressed in matching black and white striped pants and black tops. They were both wearing clown noses and had accessorized their hair with Caution tape (he with a headband, she with a hair bow). One very redneck lookin' guy and his two redneck lookin' teenage sons - had they shown up the wrong night for Kenny Chesney? Anyway, a very fun first set.

During intermission I wandered around and remarkably ran into Bill Y., a Westover friend. I tried to find Rick & Cheryl (other Westover folks) but security wasn't letting people into sections unless they had tickets for that section, so I couldn't get to them.

For the second set I hung further back in the pit, where things were more open and there was a lot more dancing going on. I don't do Fitbit, but I bet I got a lot of steps in! After a while I became intrigued by this group of four people in front of me: a guy and three women. The guy and one of the women were, I would guess, in their 40's. The other two women were younger. All four were singing along and dancing and all four had their hands all over each other in a way that was a little beyond friends dancing together. Certainly the guy had his hands all over the women, who didn't seem to mind, and two of the women were pretty intimate with each other. Were they just all incredibly f*cked up? Was it some sort of Deadhead Sister-wives situation? Were they closely bonded because they were all reincarnated from the same animal spirit? I never did manage to figure it out, but I did notice that in her Dead show ecstasy the littlest woman was hugging just about everyone around her. She and I had exchanged a couple of words over the course of the set when we had bumped into each other while dancing or in places where the band hit a high point, but she hadn't included me in her otherwise generous outpouring of hugs. This was no surprise to me, as I know that I send out some sort of megawatt non-verbal "DO NOT TOUCH ME" vibe. I don't do this on purpose, and I don't know exactly how I do it, but I do it.

I resolved that I was going to get a hug from this girl before the end of the show.

Well, that's a lot of build-up for very little climax. We did not lock eyes and fall madly in love. We did not discover that we were long lost brother and sister. I did not knock her wig off and accidentally reveal her to be a cyborg. But at one point in her gyrations she turned around and while she was facing me I did my best impersonation of a"give me a hug" kind of gesture (a language I do not speak fluently) and, lo and behold, she did. Soon after that the (just as interminable as ever!) drum solo started and I wandered away to a different area of the pit. But I came home (a) having experienced a truly excellent Terrapin Station suite, and (b) having successfully impersonated a normal person for just a moment.

The Band: Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, along with Oteil Burbridge on bass and John Mayer in the Jerry Garcia role.

The set list:

Cold Rain and Snow
New Speedway Boogie
El Paso
They Love Each Other
Candyman
Bird Song
Don't Ease Me In

Lost Sailor>
Saint of Circumstance
Viola Lee Blues
Terrapin Suite>
Drums (w/Oteil joining Mickey and Billy on percussion)>
Space>
Dear Prudence>
Scarlet Begonias>
Sunshine Daydream

Encore:
Black Muddy River

Cannonball Ride

• Father's Day present #1: Hearing David leave for work at 4 AM
• Father's Day present #2: Hearing Ted leave for work at 6 AM.
• Father's Day present #3: A nice bike ride with the NOVA Casual Bike Group (CBG) meetup.

With cycling as with many things I find myself between categories. I'm too slow to ride with "serious" cycling groups, but can do distances longer than the "casual" bike groups. The CBG Beginner rides are about the right pace for me, but too short in distance. Sunday I decided to join the CBG on a Civil War-themed ride. I biked from home to the Shirlington meeting point, turning the official 16 mile official ride into a 26 miler.

The first thing I noticed on my arrival is a lot of straight bar, hybrid bikes and that, refreshingly, not everyone was in twee Lycra outfits. The group turned out to be a mix, from an older couple with electrified bikes (they dropped out partway) to some folks in full fig.

The second thing I noticed was that of the twenty people on the ride, about fifteen were women. Was it because it was Father's Day? Do women not celebrate Father's Day? Was it because guys would never sign up for a ride advertised as "Beginner"? Who knows ...

Anyway, we headed out from Shirlington down along Four Mile Run. We connected to the Mt. Vernon trail and followed the river south into Old Town Alexandria. Our first stop was the Freedmen's and Contrabands Cemetery. During the Civil War freed slaves fled across Union lines to seek safety. Unfortunately, they found mostly squalor in refugee camps. The Freedmen's Cemetery was the final resting place of many of these poor folks who wound up in Alexandria, along with Union soldiers from Colored units. After the war the place was neglected and desecrated - a gas station and an office building were built on parts of it, and people mined clay from its western end, disturbing many graves. Only recently was the cemetery restored and, through the use of underground sensing, hundreds of graves were remarked.

Checking Out Freedman's and Contrabands' Cemetary

From there we continued to the Alexandria National Cemetery. Yes, another cemetery to remind us of our mortality on the holiday. This Cemetery was established early in the Civil War, frankly before the government had any idea of just how much burial space they were going to need. The 5 acre cemetery filled up quickly and is today largely unknown.

Alexandria National Cemetery

Our final stop was Fort Ward, which was part of the Union defensive line around Washington. At the outset of the war the Union Army occupied Alexandria and Arlington to provide a buffer around Washington. Ft. Ward was built after the Union defeat at First Manassas, when there was considerable fear that a Confederate attack on Washington was imminent. Today the area is a pretty park.

Group Photo at Ft. Ward

Getting to Ft. Ward involved a significant climb (forts tend to be on the high ground) - which I'm happy to report I made without a problem. As a result, the ride back through Fairlington to Shirlington was mostly a nice downhill run.

I didn't stick around to socialize after the ride; I just grabbed a quick iced latte at Peet's and did one more climb - the five miles back uphill home.

Around and Around

I kayaked from Columbia Island to Fletcher's cove today, and took David's 360 degree camera along to play with. Actually, the whole genesis of the 360 degree camera is kayaking-related:

• A student at SK102 had just been to the National Association of Broadcasters conference in Las Vegas and was very jazzed about VR and 360 imaging. He let me play with his Google Cardboard VR thing.
• After that, I got to thinking how that technology could be used in a long-standing idea I had for navigation training.
• I mentioned this to David and asked what he knew about these sorts of cameras. He said, "not much."
• The next day, I watched some YouTube videos and learned a little about how it works. Over the same period David devoured an enormous amount of information online about 360 degree cameras and VR, and had ordered a low end camera to experiment with.
• One day later, thanks to Amazon Prime fast shipping, we had a 360 degree camera in the house.

Here are some images from this morning's paddle:

Georgetown - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

Potomac River just above Georgetown. Can you spot the deer on the riverbank? - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

Here are links to view those images via the theta360 site (can go full screen, which doesn't seem to work from the blog):

https://theta360.com/s/hfjrnOouE8O33eweRITvSnf6G

https://theta360.com/s/kyudhf9sx9lZ9Hy4E71JFXbCy

Pungo Party!

The Wilderness Systems Pungo is an extremely popular recreational kayak. Twelve feet long, wide and stable, and with a big cockpit, it's perfect for many casual kayakers.

Sea kayakers sneer at the Pungo. It is not a "real" kayak, and our impression is that it's mostly paddled by yahoos without any regard for safety who survive their outings only because the Darwin effect isn't 100% reliable.

Last weekend we visited our friends A & S out at Bethany Beach. Imagine my excitement when S suggested that we spend Saturday kayaking in his and his friend Gene's Pungos. S had previously mentioned that he had bought a kayak and liked to paddle around "the pond" which made me expect a couple of hours of putzing around a scummy little pond. Truth be told, I had intentionally *not* brought my kayaking stuff so as not to encourage such an outing.

The three of us launched from the dock at their development (cool!) into what turned out to be a lovely salt pond. Gene and I did wear our PFDs.  S, who had belittled my suggestion of wearing a PFD when I had mentioned it in the past, was true to form and used his PFD to cover his legs against the sun. I had a Chesapeake Paddlers existential crisis moment  - what do you do when your host refuses to wear his PFD?? What is the proper etiquette when you notice your host is paddling with his paddle upside down?

Safety and etiquette notwithstanding, I quickly realized that this was actually going to be something much better than bobbing in a a pond. S is something of an Energizer Bunny in everything he does. When we cross-country ski at White Grass, he wants to be skiing non-stop. He is loathe to, for example, take a break at the lodge and enjoy the delicious White Grass soups (I, on the other hand, consider a break in the lodge a pleasant part of the overall White Grass experience). Kayaking was no exception to his MO. No putzing around for him - he took off, with a real paddling outing in mind.

It turns out that the salt pond onto which we launched is connected via a series of canals to Little Assawoman Bay (yes, there is a Big Assawoman Bay too - does this Bay make by Assawoman look Big?), where we explored the marshy channels. Assawoman is a wildlife refuge and so it's pretty and relatively un-despoiled by development. Poking through the marshes if fun - trying to find channels to get you just a little bit further, backtracking when they don't pan out, trying again.

Finally, after hitting about our hundredth dead end, we decided it was time to turn back. I actually enjoyed the trip back much more than the trip out through the canals. I like having a plan, and so it didn't sit well with me when we were just heading out kayaking with no destination and no idea of how long we were going out for. Once we turned around I had a firm idea of how much paddling we had to do and could relax and enjoy it.

I wasn't running a GPS, but from the map I estimated we covered about seven miles - not bad for any outing, and certainly a mega-trip by Pungo standards. A a good time, despite my boat snobbery and the uncertainty of the trip. And, y'know what - for exploring marshes, the Pungo is a great boat.